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Observing Report - F.L.O. April 4th/2001
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Sess.#284 7:45-11:00 FLO lm=5.2 s=3 Clear
I had not observed from the RASC's Fred Lossing Observatory in a while and so, in spite of the moonlight, decided to check it out. Richard Harding and Mike Zeidler had not been there before, and so we all took the opportunity to drive there in a "wagon train" together from the PetroCan station in Almonte. The combination Al Seaman gave me worked on the first try. The small road leading up to the observatory was partly muddy, partly snow covered, but it wasn't too bad at all if you drove at moderate speed. The nearly full moon really reduced the limiting magnitude. Even at a dark site, you get about the same view as you would from a city backyard location, when the moon is that large. Limiting magnitude overhead was only 5.2 - a bit more than 1 mag. loss, as compared to a moonless night at this site. Seeing was fairly bad as well. After the scopes had cooled I cranked up the magnification on an "in-focus" star, and could not even see any diffraction rings at all. The star just seemed like a jumbled boil of light. Out of ten, this was either a 2 or 3 at best. Unusually poor seeing. There also seemed to be a bit of a haze hanging in the air. ( temperature differential between day & night was 15 degrees C. Meteor - MikeZ spotted a meteor approx mag -1 in Orion constellation early on in the evening. Planets - were very mushy and did not snap into focus, even after cool down. M42 - trapezium star in all scopes looked large and boiling. Moon - in the end, we decided to focus our efforts on the moon. I spent perhaps an hour in total looking at the crater Plato using different eyepieces, moon filters and magnifications. The best view I had was through Richard's Pentax 10.5mm eyepiece - even in the poor seeing, I could just make out three craterlets on the floor of Plato. The contrast in that eyepiece was a definite notch better than in my 10mm Speers-Waller eyepiece. Al Seaman, now a fellow OAF as well, showed up not too long after sunset. Luckily, he had a key to the clubhouse and observatory so he opened things up. Mike, who could not bring his scope ( waiting for his 11GPS ) was then able to use the 10" Dobsonian scope, as well as peek through the 16" in the observatory. Still later, a couple of friendly RASC members (Rick and Bob, I believe) showed up as well. Rick had talked with us at the sidewalk session at Chapters and even commented: "Attilla's not with you tonight?" Al did some collimation on a 10" SCT that was very obviously quite off. I am by no means an expert on collimation, except that I know I can do a fairly decent job on my SCT-8". In any case, Al and I were able to improve the collimation substantially, I think. But a real fine tuning would require much better skies, or a collimation shop. It was an excellent reconnaisance mission to introduce FLO as one potential place to go for a couple of persons who live in the West End. Fun time for all. Thanks for giving us the tour, Al! Photonman |
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Richard Harding
Hi to All!
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Just one thing to add. Bob and Rick had an orange tube C-8 set up in Alt-Az on a surveyors tripod (ergo no tracking). Near the end of the evening they started to "get silly" (as we often do!!) and I heard them laughing. I went over to the scope to see what was so funny, and they told me that they were fooling around with seeing just how high a magnification that they could get on the moon with various ortho/barlow combinations. Apparently they were over 600 X. I looked in the eyepiece and couldn't see a thing!! Suddenly a crater zoomed past followed by a second, then a third!! It really did look funny, kind of like a cheezy 1920's attempt at a sci-fi movie!! I then understood why they were laughing....it got a giggle out of me!!......."strange, strange demons and goblins and things that go bump in the night!" Richard "pining for the fiords" Harding Return-Path: <sentto-2911285-307-986478070-rharding=iosphere.net@...> |
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Al Seaman
r.prevost@... wrote:
This was my first chance to join in an activity with the OAFs, and it turned out to be a fun evening. Nice to meet some of the other OAFers. Meant to reply sooner, but this was one of those days.... Al did some collimation on a 10" SCT that was very obviously quiteHaving messed up the collimation a while back with some diddling under non-ideal circumstances, one of my objectives for the evening was to regain the lost ground. Your help in this task, Roland, was greatly appreciated. Another time when seeing is better, I'll try some further fine tuning. It was an excellent reconnaisance mission to introduce FLO as oneIt was a great evening and I enjoyed the company. Hope to see more of the OAFs in the future. Cheers - Al Seaman |
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